Thursday, April 17, 2014

Let me be the first to reiterate powerfully that I love
trains; I would also hasten to add that since a peculiar childhood, influenced
by a father who was totally enamoured by public transportation, I have
collected, read, studied and loved timetables. It is a curious interest,
perhaps, but no reason to move a couple of seats away from me in a waiting
room.

There are many fine train rides, often collected in glossy
coffee table books, labouring under a title like “The Greatest Train Rides in
the World”, or some such other similar title; many are terrific, many are
simply there because the author scored a free ticket to travel on the train and
include it in their catalogue, some are simply ordinary, but take place in a
strange part of the world.

They are all mildly exciting. Few, however, are part of a
major European city’s regional suburban system, and are thus not always so easy
to find. Having told friends about the run down the mountains into Barcelona, they asked at local stations to astonished disbelief, "There is no such train" they were told, but I knew better.

The run from La Tour de Carol, an unusual town
lying astride the Spanish and French border at an altitude of about 1,400
metres down to Barcelona is a fine journey, and starts at the evocative and rather marvellous station, large for its current, rather dozy existence,
but in days gone by, a busy centre of smuggling between the two countries. Smuggling
of people, northbound from Franco’s ghastly regime and southbound from pursuing
Nazis, of goods, mostly of an alcoholic nature and the rather pungent Spanish tobacco,
was the mainstay of the local economy. And the station, sitting pompously on
the border reflected the authorities’ attempts to subdue or at least profit
from this trade.

It is also where everybody changes trains; railway tracks
in Spain are 5’5 ²¹̷₃₂” wide, while their French counterparts make their railways
travel over tracks that are a mere 4’8 ½”. Now the discrepancy of just over 9”
makes travel cumbersome, not to mention dangerous if attempted. If you think
that this is all a bit unnecessary, know that in Spain alone, four different
gauges of railways exist in the country, this one being called the Ancho Iberico, if you were wondering.

We, however, only wanted a scenic railway ride, and
fortified with a marvellous lunch at the Auberge Catalane (opens daily at
noon for lunch), we were in time for the 1345 train to Barcelona. The train is
not a normal one, and is awkward to find details of its running. It is, in
fact, part of the Rodalies de Catalunya (route R3), and thus wobbles its suburban
way for three hours down through the mountains to the coast.

The journey is terrific; there are 22 stations on the
way, and for the first ninety minutes or so, they are picturesque Catalan hill
stations, the train populated by market goers and hordes of hikers and bikers
back from the mountains. The Pyrenees are truly stunning; unlike the Alps, Rockies
and even the Great Caucasus, they have an almost human shape; rising up to
4,000 metres, that assume dizzying heights in a formation that seems to bend
with the wind. They are beautiful, and in common with other distant and remote
ranges are home to dozens of ancient cultures and languages, some living in
adjacent valleys for millennia, yet with mutually incomprehensible lives.

The train journey is more than worth the €12 that one is
charged for the privilege, and once in Barcelona, there are a choice of five
different stations to alight, suiting all but the most persnickety. Our aim was
to enjoy some tapas, wander the unique streets of the city and enjoy dinner at
the Catalan restaurant El Glop in the
district of Gracia.

Barcelona is an astonishing city; it is one that I
believe could be detected if blindfold. Its streets follow a unique pattern of
hexagonal corners, and the ambient noise of the city comes from the thousands
of scooters that whizz around all day and all night. It is an exciting city for
those who wait. Dinner time is, in the Spanish way, from 9.00pm onward, and
arriving at midnight, on a Tuesday or Wednesday is not at all uncommon.

Dinner was wonderful, and a rabbit and some ox-tail stew
washed down with a very pleasant Tempranillo seemed to sooth the soul.

And so to the hills in the morning; an hours’ walk to the
train station to catch the return journey to La Tour de Carol (in Barcelona
called La Tor de Querol) proved
uneventful; other than the small matter of purchasing the tickets.

Although the train heads to La Tour de Carol, and indeed
says so on the front, the ticketing office will only sell a ticket as far as
Puicgerdá (pronounced Poo-chair-DA); and should one want to use a credit card,
then the ticket office was of no use at all, and a machine had to be brought to
attention and made to dispense the tickets. I am not sure why the Rodalies Catalunya pretend that the
final station on their route does not exist, perhaps it is because it is in
France, but needless to say, after a little confusion, a ticket was bought, the
train boarded and the three-hour haul up the mountains commenced.

And let me say that the return journey was spectacular. While
the southbound trip was wonderful, heading into the mountains gave one a sense of
spectacle; they loomed ever closer, the population on the train thinned out,
the stations became more rural and finally, almost poetically, we jumped into
the scenery; Secret meadows far below us, cascading waterfalls of spring
run-off thundering into the rivers, tiny and ancient houses perched
precariously on the hills and the ruins of ancient fortifications punctuating
the skyline. Terrific stuff, and when the six-carriage train pulled into La
Tour (each carriage could carry up to 203 passengers, 58 seated, for a total
potential passenger capacity of 1218), only 12 of us got off.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

I realise that I have a lifestyle that borders on the
unusual, and for that I am grateful. I am able to wander, see odd and disparate
places, meet fascinating people and gather a treasure trove of useless facts
with which I can pepper conversation for months.

Firstly, a word about the festival; imagine if you will,
a small village of (perhaps) 450 souls playing host to a crowd of up to 30,000
for a day of celebration, duck sandwiches and wine. Copious amounts of wine, I
might add, not just a child’s portion; enough to make some of the hill-folk loose all inhibitions about playing instruments that look suspiciously like Scooped Out Sheep in public.

The celebration is an annual event, and villages
throughout the region that supplies the major winery Sieur d'Arques. Villages
bid for the right to host the annual festival in a manner not unlike the
competitions to host the World Cup or the Olympics, however with significantly
smaller budgets. The winner will then have a couple of years to raise funds,
establish numerous committees, create special weather prayers and wait for the
event.

On the day itself, thousands of visitors, almost all of
whom are local, will purchase a glass (€5), some tokens for wine (€2/glass and €10/bottle),
and then head off into the madding crowd. Wine stalls selling their wares are
everywhere, as are musicians, folks selling duck sandwiches and oysters,
jugglers, drummers and thousands of folk. Knee-deep in wine, with laughter
rising perceptibly in volume as the afternoon progresses but rarely a smashing
glass and never a fight the event continues until the early hours of the
morning.

It is impossible to imagine rivers-full of alcohol,
glasses and thousands of people in the UK, for example, without conjuring up
images of horror, but here in the Languedoc, the festival is charming, well
organised, exceptionally amusing and held on the weekend before Easter each
year. Make a note in your diaries.

It is, my friend Hubert says, the largest tourist event
that isn't a tourist event that he has ever seen. And as a former CEO of a
provincial tourist department for decades, he should know.

But then again, if Peter Mayle had written a book called A Year in the Languedoc, the economy of
the south of France would be completely different. The region, known but
unknown, is delightful. The centre of the Cathar religion in the 10th
to 12th centuries, it still harbours mysteries and intrigue among
devotees of mystery and intrigue! The Cathars, the Holy Grail, Mary’s escape
from the Holy Land, The da Vinci Code, all mixed up with wine, fine food,
delightful scenery and not a little story telling.

And so the festival, as far from Pyongyang as I can
imagine, starts in four days. It is said in these parts that Don Perignon
discovered his wine-making secrets here before moving to Champagne where they
figured out how to bottle the stuff without it blowing up. Fanciful, I imagine,
and probably as truthful as the DPRK’s Concrete Wall, but there you go, it is a
good story. Nostradamus himself was supposed to have dwelt in a nearby village,
but a little prodding of the museum’s curator, and a rather wistful comment of “Well, he might have stayed the night in the
village once” comes a touch closer to the truth.

Sometimes it can all become overwhelming

However, it is true that the production of wine is no
stranger to these parts.

Livy was recorded as trading non-sparkling wines with the
Romans, and the first references to “Blanquette”,
or “Small White”, came from the
Benedictine Monks who made the first sparkling wines here in 1531. The other white
grape of some substantial use here is Mauzac, which along with Chardonnay and
Pinot are the grapes from which the delicious local Crement de Limoux is made.

All grist to the mill, and worthy of examination.

It is, perhaps, worth relating a little story about wine
sales, and one that perhaps illuminates a great fiction of the world of
mega-wine.

For several years, the Limoux winery Sieur d’Arques
exported tankers-full of Pinot Noir to Gallo in the US, who sold this far and
wide under the Red Bicyclette label.
So popular was this concoction that new warehouses were built, and for all I
know, special docking facilities for the ever-larger tankers racing this
popular brew from the south of France to the US of A.

All was well until a sharp-eyed accountant pointed out
that they were in fact selling to Gallo alone, approximately 200% of the annual
output of Pinot Noir grapes. Now interestingly, during this period, not a
single customer, nor a single Gallo executive or wine taster, questioned the
adulteration of their potion by the addition of the cheaper Merlot grape. A
small fine was levied discreetly, one would not want this sort of scandal to
hit the front pages, Red Bicyclette
was relabelled and presumably launched to new heights.

Friday, April 4, 2014

I try not to be silent for so many days, but honestly, a
combination of Georgian hospitality and the fascinating people of the
International Wine Conference have led to a temporary paralysis; one that I am
happy to relate is now over, and I am ready to report.

It was the second conference that I have attended of the
wine genre, and I can think of no
good reason for having delayed participation in this astonishing industry for
so many years. Wine folks are different; interesting, convivial and
enthusiastic, albeit with a curious vocabulary, their deep interest into a
subject that hitherto I have found merely engaging is motivating.

Wine Tourism is fun!

Wine conferences are fun; it is as simple as that. They
are not related in any way to the dreary commercial gatherings held in grey
motorway hotels, where hundreds of earnest folks gather to discuss the latest
trends in snap-on technology or advanced metallurgical gains in beading. They are the jovial end of the business-meeting spectrum, and require more convivial surroundings for their deliberations.

And do not think for one minute that the discussions are frivolous; no, these are folks, deadly serious about their trade mind
you, who gather to “enjoy”; their purpose is to find new and exciting grape
varieties, nouveau-Wineries, debunk myths and enjoy a glass or two. Add to
these darlings the niche-market of the travel industry specialising in culinary
tourism and the result is quite magical.

Take Tim Clarke. A Larger Than Life character, and
co-founder of the tremendously successful Arblaster & Clarke travel
company, he wanders through life with an enormous grin matching his
encyclopaedic knowledge of the subject. He is familiar with hundreds of
wineries, their owners and products, the new trends in tourism and of course,
can spot an indolent molecule of “leather or banana” in a glass of anything at one
hundred metres. He is also an academic historian, and presented a paper to the
conference about his role as a consultant to the Georgian government’s efforts
to develop a wine-tourism industry; sadly, we competed for audience share, and
I was unable to hear the speech, but have enjoyed reading it, and look forward to
promoting their fine tourism programs to our clients.

John Wurdeman and Tim Clarke

Other papers delivered included such gems as “Wine as
Culture. Case Study; Lazio”, “Chicken Soup for the Wine Tourist’s Soul” and “Using
Sensory Analysis as Games for a Memorable Visit”. Real corkers, and held the
audience in raptures.

There was, of course, a Grand Wine Tasting led by the
delightful and astonishingly knowledgeable Master of Wine, Sarah Abbott whose acquaintance
I had been fortunate to make a year or so ago on another wine beano in Georgia.
She led us rapidly through eleven local wines, each delicious and each
memorable (for a minute or two in my befuddled brain) that highlighted the
diversity that epitomises the wine industry in this remarkable country.

Thus fortified, and by now knee-deep in wine, we boarded
buses to go and drink more of the stuff. Three days spent in quite delightful
and cosmopolitan company we struggled through eight marvellous wineries,
including my personal favourite, the Alaverdi Monastery. These monks, and their
predecessors obviously, have been making wine since 1011, a pedigree that is
quite obvious in their production. They make wines that are simply outstanding
and unfortunately rare. However, for those fortunate enough to make it to their
home, which is itself a fantastic complex dating back to the beginning of time,
the opportunity to taste their production is well worth the effort.

Needless to say, we ate well as well; Georgians are known
for their tradition of feasting, and one can safely say that our hosts did not
stint. Eating until the point of blowing-up is not a good habit for the long
term, but over a couple of days, it seemed that over-indulgence became the
norm. Tables groaning under the weight of the food, toasts, polyphonic singing,
Georgian folk dancing and much laughter became the nightly norm. And as surely
as day follows night, breakfasts while delicious, were considerably quieter.

And so one continues to wander in search of a crust;
Gruelling Business Travel is an important part of a business life, and one has
to say that the world of the culinary travel industry is not a bad gang to be a
part of.